N’Goma FPSO Achieves First Oil Offshore Angola

Eni announced this week their N’Goma FPSO has commenced oil production from the West Hub Development Project located in deepwater Block 15/16 offshore Angola approximately 350 kilometres northwest of Luanda and 130 kilometres west of Soyo.

The company says initial production is at 45,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) with production ramp-up expected to reach a daily production of up to 100,000 bopd in the coming months via 12 subsea production wells. In the coming years, additional subsea wells will be drilled at the East Hub Development located at the same block which will call for an additional FPSO. Start-up of the East Hub Development is expected in 2017 and will raise overall production from Block 15/06 to 200,000 bpd.

Eni says that via their exploration drilling campaign at Block 15/16, they have discovered over 3 billion barrels of oil in place and 850 million barrels of reserves.

Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi commented: “The start-up of the West Hub in Angola is a milestone in Eni’s upstream activities. Starting from an extraordinary exploration success we have achieved an industry-leading time to market of only 4 years from the declaration of commercial discovery. This result reflects a new, modular, development model which adds value to our strategy of organic growth.”

Eni is operator of the Block 15/06 with a 35% stake and Sonangol EP is the Concessionaire. The other partners of the joint venture are Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção (35%), SSI Fifteen Limited (25%) and Falcon Oil Holding Angola SA (5%).